“Forget Sunscreen, Be Resouceful”
Good afternoon, Class of 2099:
I can’t be here in person to address you, since I passed into oblivion long ago. But as a member of a U.S. graduating class of 1971 at a small college in Boston, I wanted to leave you with a brief message — from the past to the future — about global warming and climate change.
As the class of 2099 here at Tel Aviv University in Israel, you are about to enter the 22nd Century in a few more months, and you will bring with you not only your university experience but also your career expectations and personal anxieties as citizens living on a planet in the midst of a climate crisis.
I’m sure you’ve heard this term a lot in the past four years — “climate crisis” — but you should know that in my days as a student in the 1960s, we never used the phrase. Back then, we had not even heard of the term yet!
Back then, of course, we were focused on terms such as Cold War, nuclear winter, war on poverty, racism, the oil shock, the Middle East situation, and later on, towards of our “three score and ten” on Earth, newer terms such as 911, terrorism and global warming.
I’m not around now, but I hope you can read my message online and perhaps view it on a digital recording in a public library. Before I continue, I just want to take a few moments here to wish you all the best of luck in your future life and the best of health to enjoy the luck that I am wishing for you.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wnrm2jE-E[/youtube]
May all your dreams come true, and then some!
Members of the Class of 2099, you are living in a very crucial time in the history of humankind. Your world stands at the threshold of a period of human history when very important decisions will have to be made about the use of fossil fuels and the “consume! slash! burn!” lifestyle that you have come to expect.
I wonder: do the names James Lovelock or James Hansen or Al Gore still ring a bell in your generation now, or have new faces and names replaced these far-seeing men?
Is that book by Mark Lynas, titled “Six Degrees,” still in print, or has a new besteller on climate change become the must-read of your generation?
Is that documentary from 2006, “An Inconvenient Truth”, still in circulation? And what about Leonardo DiCaprio’s “The 11th Hour”? Have you ever heard of the movie, or has it been all but forgotten in your day and age?
By the way, have you men and women of the Class of 2099 heard by now about such global warming adaptation strategies as “sustainable population retreats” in northern regions, once referred to as “polar cities”?
The terms were coined back in 2006 and some people blogged them for a couple of years before mainstream scientists and engineers went even deeper into the concepts involved.
Class of 2099, I want to leave you with seven words: “We must tighten the noose around coal”.
Dr. Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University in the U.S. wrote those words more than 100 years ago, and they were prophetic.
Has your world tightened the noose around coal? Has your world started to tackle the vexing problems of overpopulation, climate change and the creation of a sustainable economy? Is global warming something that will shape your future, or are the denialists out there still complaining that it is a hoax?
Whatever your own personal views are about global warming, pro or con, or just sitting on the fence in the middle of the debate, you should know this: there is not much time left. I hope your generation finds a way to stop the burning of fossil fuels and also finds ways to mitigate the impact of climate change on your future world. I just said that “there is not much time left.”
Maybe I should have said “time is running out”. Or maybe I should have said: “Time has run out.”
Whatever. Class of 2099, go out and help create your world. Good luck
and God bless!
Dan Bloom is a climate activist working in Taiwan. He graduated from
Tufts College in 1971 in Boston. He is an advocate of polar cities, building retreats for humankind for when the effects of global warming will make regions we live in today inhospitable. He is a friend to Green Prophet.
Dan Bloom is a disgusting old goat
Thanks for putting up this guest blog here, I appreciate it. I hope the class of 2099 finds a better world than I have imagined for it. If we all take action now, maybe the future will turn out okay. Sigh. — Dan Bloom emailing in from Taiwan
Btw, ABC TV has a good show on Tuesday called ‘Earth 2100′ and some pundits are asking if this the Final Century of Civilization?
Planet at Risk: Experts Warn Population Growth, Resource Depletion,
Climate Change Could Bring Catastrophe in Next Century
writes ALEXA DANNER on
May 29, 2009, adding:
It’s an idea that most of us would rather not face — that within the
next century, life as we know it could come to an end. Our
civilization could crumble, leaving only traces of modern human
existence behind.
It seems outlandish, extreme — even impossible. But according to
cutting edge scientific research, it is a very real possibility. And
unless we make drastic changes now, it could very well happen.
Experts have a stark warning: that unless we change course, the
“perfect storm” of population growth, dwindling resources and climate
change has the potential to converge in the next century with
catastrophic results.
Watch “Earth 2100,” a two-hour television event, Tuesday, June 2, at 9 p.m. ET.
In order to plan for the worst, we must anticipate it. In that spirit,
guided by some of the world’s experts, ABC News’ “Earth 2100,” hosted
by Bob Woodruff, will journey through the next century and explore
what might be our worst-case scenario.
But no one can predict the future, so how do we address the
possibilities that lie ahead? Our solution is Lucy, a fictional
character devised by the producers at ABC to guide us through the
twists and turns of what the next 100 years could look like. It is
through her eyes and experiences that we can truly imagine the
experts’ worst-case scenario — and be inspired to make changes for
the better.